I was born on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, in 1955, near the ocean. That is a temperate climate by most standards. It got hot in summer and cold in winter, but as a child I did not worry about it. We had no air conditioning, almost nobody did back then, but we certainly had heat. I remember being seriously cold only once, when Legendary Mother locked me out of the house during a snow storm in Greenville, Texas when I was four, to punish me (Legendary Father was stationed in Japan that year).
In 1955 the human population of the United States was about 165 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 2.6 billion.
When I was six years old Legendary Father was retired from the Marine Corps (they failed to anticipate the need for trained, reliable murderers starting in 1965 in Vietnam) and we moved to Florida. It was hot! But again, no air conditioning. Our house was in a suburb that had recently been a swamp. My grade school was not air conditioned either.
Then around 1964 we moved into a fancier neighborhood and the house had central air. Legendary Mother set the thermostat at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees C.) In summer it was 70, and in winter it was 70. Whatever budget strains the family had, no thought was given saving a bit of electricity by letting the house vary from 70. The electricity, in that place and era, came from burning fuel oil.
In 1965 the human population of the United States was about 190 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 3.4 billion.
I have to admit I became a bit of a weenie. Cold was seldom a problem. I continued to play outside when I could, and I continued to sweat profusely while sitting still at school, in the fall and spring. But I also enjoyed walking into our air conditioned house and cooling off. At some point a new car was bought that had air conditioning.
In school I never, ever had air conditioning. Not in grade school, not in high school, not in college.
But in the winter of 1973-74 I ran into a different problem. That was a result of the Arab Oil Embargo. I had no budget for clothing for college (Legendary Father and Legendary Mother had thrown me out of the family), or I should say that working for minimum wage to pay for college made me extremely careful about buying anything. My freshman year I had endured the cold of New England dressed in Florida appropriate clothes. But at least the dorms and classrooms were well heated.
Not so the winter of 1973-74. My college economized. I was cold all the time, in my dorm room and in classrooms. But I did not die, and when Spring rolled around, I had largely acclimatized. My Florida clothes (now becoming rags) were adequate because my body had adapted.
In 1975 the population of the U.S. was about 215 million. The global population was about 4.1 billion.
My body had adapted to cold despite spending most of my childhood in Florida. In the meantime, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, America was converting vast amounts of fossil fuel into carbon dioxide. In 1975 Global Warming itself was still somewhat hidden among the ordinary fluctuations of weather, but we, the human race, had built a big ol' Greenhouse by burning fuel to run heaters and air conditions, cars and trucks, factories and armies.
Now political leaders (well, heads of state anyway) are gathered in Paris to pretend to do something about greenhouse gasses and global warming.
Couldn't they just agree to Turn Off the Goddam Air Conditioners! No one on earth had air conditioning until the 20th century. People can acclimatize to heat. They can wear shorts in summer, even at places of business. The first year will be tough, sure, as we get used to sweating again (and other people sweating).
Instead the Air Conditioned Nightmare (Henry Miller's term) is spreading like a cancer on the earth. As soon as people have the dough, they want their first air conditioner. Just like my Legendary Mother.
Sure, do all the other things. But turning off all air conditioners can be done quickly and would have a major impact.
An estimate of the current human population of the United States is 322 million, and of earth is 7.2 billion.
The other important item that should be on the Paris agenda is lowering the human population by setting up a global One Child policy. Half the population would produce only half the environmental problem. But sadly, that idea is not on the agenda. It is not on the agenda of most environmental non-profits, either, because they are afraid of the fundraising repercussions of speaking the real core truth to Power. Better to blow up skirts and reap the rain of donations.
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Right to Yacht Goes Wild
Inspired by the recent expansion of the Right to Work movement, Right to Yacht groups have been springing up across the nation, especially in the Right to Work states where yacht clubs are common.
Florida has seen the most Right to Yacht actions so far, but there have been also been Right to Yacht actions in Texas and Virginia, and preliminary Internet organizing and discussion in several other states, including Michigan. [See Limits on Unions Pass in Michigan].
In one Florida incident a yacht owned by a Miami area hedge fund owner was illicitly used for a party. Right to Yachters simply snuck by yacht club guards and had a party in the boat, emptying its liquor cabinet and "generally making a mess of it." The party goers snuck out before police or security guards became aware of the situation.
An Anonymous Right to Yacht person explained. "If you don't have to pay union dues to work in a unionized work place, why should you have to pay dues to get any privilege? Why should I have to pay yacht club fees to enjoy a yacht? Next time I'm taking a crew out into the bay."
According to postings on Internet bulletin boards, there are already two trends in the Right To Yacht movement. Some believe that only politicians who vote Right to Work laws, and their financial backers, should have their yachts targeted. These yachting excursions would take on the air of political protests against a specific law.
But the Eat the Rich trend seems to be more popular, at least in rhetoric. This trend seems to have a total disregard for the private property rights of the rich in general. They believe the rich deserve nothing they have grabbed. They talk of not just having floating parties, but of the right to take whatever they need from any rich person any time, from mansions to limousines to wallets. One online diatribe called for crowds to swoop into fancy restaurants and eat the food off the plates of the diners, calling it the Right to Eat.
Others talk of refusing to pay all forms of dues, rather than just union dues. Dues are a form of payment for a service. They want services without payment, just like workers who take advantage of the Right to Work laws to live like parasites. They even talk of creating homes for people without paying for permits or following building codes.
But the real purpose of the Right to Work laws is to keep wages and benefits unfairly low. In turn, this keeps profits high, and enables the business class to keep their yachts, mansions, and club memberships. What the people of America really need a way to Share the Wealth, and not just with the welfare class. It is the ordinary workers who get up in the morning and staff the stores, build the yachts, mansions, and malls, and do all the sundry things that allow us all to live who deserve better. They need more than the right to unionize. They need to get their share from what is owed to them for past labor, one way or another.
Check out the Internet for a Right to Yacht party near you, or Occupy a Michigan politician's home and see how they like it.
Florida has seen the most Right to Yacht actions so far, but there have been also been Right to Yacht actions in Texas and Virginia, and preliminary Internet organizing and discussion in several other states, including Michigan. [See Limits on Unions Pass in Michigan].
In one Florida incident a yacht owned by a Miami area hedge fund owner was illicitly used for a party. Right to Yachters simply snuck by yacht club guards and had a party in the boat, emptying its liquor cabinet and "generally making a mess of it." The party goers snuck out before police or security guards became aware of the situation.
According to postings on Internet bulletin boards, there are already two trends in the Right To Yacht movement. Some believe that only politicians who vote Right to Work laws, and their financial backers, should have their yachts targeted. These yachting excursions would take on the air of political protests against a specific law.
But the Eat the Rich trend seems to be more popular, at least in rhetoric. This trend seems to have a total disregard for the private property rights of the rich in general. They believe the rich deserve nothing they have grabbed. They talk of not just having floating parties, but of the right to take whatever they need from any rich person any time, from mansions to limousines to wallets. One online diatribe called for crowds to swoop into fancy restaurants and eat the food off the plates of the diners, calling it the Right to Eat.
Others talk of refusing to pay all forms of dues, rather than just union dues. Dues are a form of payment for a service. They want services without payment, just like workers who take advantage of the Right to Work laws to live like parasites. They even talk of creating homes for people without paying for permits or following building codes.
But the real purpose of the Right to Work laws is to keep wages and benefits unfairly low. In turn, this keeps profits high, and enables the business class to keep their yachts, mansions, and club memberships. What the people of America really need a way to Share the Wealth, and not just with the welfare class. It is the ordinary workers who get up in the morning and staff the stores, build the yachts, mansions, and malls, and do all the sundry things that allow us all to live who deserve better. They need more than the right to unionize. They need to get their share from what is owed to them for past labor, one way or another.
Check out the Internet for a Right to Yacht party near you, or Occupy a Michigan politician's home and see how they like it.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Memorial Day for American Indian Warriors
On Memorial Day we honor all Americans who have died in wars. But we tend to remember, and honor, some more than others. I'd like to remind you of some of the others.
We have no records of the ancient battles that took place among the true natives of what is now the United States of America. There are some records of some of the age-of-heroes battles of Mexico and South America, but most have been lost or destroyed.
I would like to honor the almost forgotten heroes who, around 1000 A.D., died in a battle against the first know European would-be settlers, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, even though that most likely took place somewhere in Canada.
There is the Calusa brave who shot the arrow who killed the Spanish pirate Juan Ponce de Leon in Florida in 1521. No one in their right mind would want to be conquered and ruled by the Spanish. The native tribes were in their right minds. As I recall they also managed to nearly wipe out a large military expedition by Hernando De Soto in 1542. Here's to any warriors who died defending America in that contest. Sadly, the Spanish eventually got a foothold in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.
I just was reading a section in A History of Christian Missions by Stephen Neill in which he derided native Americans, before they were Christianized, as being too violent. I think they were not violent enough. If they had fought among themselves more, earlier, they might have had weapons and tactics (military and political) capable of keeping the Brits out. The Brits are synonymous with global terror. From a slow start on their own backward, pestilential island in 1600 they ended up conquering and enslaving about half the world by 1900. When the Brits first arrived in what are now called Virginia (in 1606, after the failure of 1584) and Massachusetts (in 1620), unfortunately the local native American peoples were led by weak or peace-loving chiefs. Once established, the Brits would never be dislodged. Here's to the Indian warriors who died trying in that early era.
The battles came frequently and furiously after that. One of the most important events to remember is King Philip's war of 1675-1676. The tribes of New England, unfortunately not fully united under their chief Philip, came reasonably close to driving out the British settlers. Instead the Indians themselves were defeated, massacred, and the remnant confined. On Memorial Day it is a good thing to remember the Indian warriors of 1676, because they were brave and in the right, yet lost anyway.
A lot of Indian warriors died defending their people, land, and way of life between 1676 and the defeat of the western tribes in the late 1800s. Here's to their collective memory.
The last brave American Indian warriors, so to speak, that we should remember on Memorial Day were actually in the Indies for which American Indians were misnamed. They were the people of the Philippine Islands who had finally defeated the Spanish and proclaimed their independence in 1898. Meanwhile the U.S. infamously declared war on Spain with no just cause, only the desire to seize Spanish colonies. The Spanish, who pretended to own the Philippines despite their defeat by the natives, "sold" the islands to the U.S. when the peace treaty was signed. In fact grabbing the Philippines and their sugar plantations had been a central reason that the U.S. had declared war.
The mopping up operations that made the Philippines a slave colony of the U.S. involved killing some 500,000 to 2,000,000 Filipinos, depending on whose count you use. On Memorial Day we don't need to remember them all. Only the soldiers.
We have no records of the ancient battles that took place among the true natives of what is now the United States of America. There are some records of some of the age-of-heroes battles of Mexico and South America, but most have been lost or destroyed.
I would like to honor the almost forgotten heroes who, around 1000 A.D., died in a battle against the first know European would-be settlers, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, even though that most likely took place somewhere in Canada.
There is the Calusa brave who shot the arrow who killed the Spanish pirate Juan Ponce de Leon in Florida in 1521. No one in their right mind would want to be conquered and ruled by the Spanish. The native tribes were in their right minds. As I recall they also managed to nearly wipe out a large military expedition by Hernando De Soto in 1542. Here's to any warriors who died defending America in that contest. Sadly, the Spanish eventually got a foothold in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.
I just was reading a section in A History of Christian Missions by Stephen Neill in which he derided native Americans, before they were Christianized, as being too violent. I think they were not violent enough. If they had fought among themselves more, earlier, they might have had weapons and tactics (military and political) capable of keeping the Brits out. The Brits are synonymous with global terror. From a slow start on their own backward, pestilential island in 1600 they ended up conquering and enslaving about half the world by 1900. When the Brits first arrived in what are now called Virginia (in 1606, after the failure of 1584) and Massachusetts (in 1620), unfortunately the local native American peoples were led by weak or peace-loving chiefs. Once established, the Brits would never be dislodged. Here's to the Indian warriors who died trying in that early era.
The battles came frequently and furiously after that. One of the most important events to remember is King Philip's war of 1675-1676. The tribes of New England, unfortunately not fully united under their chief Philip, came reasonably close to driving out the British settlers. Instead the Indians themselves were defeated, massacred, and the remnant confined. On Memorial Day it is a good thing to remember the Indian warriors of 1676, because they were brave and in the right, yet lost anyway.
A lot of Indian warriors died defending their people, land, and way of life between 1676 and the defeat of the western tribes in the late 1800s. Here's to their collective memory.
The last brave American Indian warriors, so to speak, that we should remember on Memorial Day were actually in the Indies for which American Indians were misnamed. They were the people of the Philippine Islands who had finally defeated the Spanish and proclaimed their independence in 1898. Meanwhile the U.S. infamously declared war on Spain with no just cause, only the desire to seize Spanish colonies. The Spanish, who pretended to own the Philippines despite their defeat by the natives, "sold" the islands to the U.S. when the peace treaty was signed. In fact grabbing the Philippines and their sugar plantations had been a central reason that the U.S. had declared war.
The mopping up operations that made the Philippines a slave colony of the U.S. involved killing some 500,000 to 2,000,000 Filipinos, depending on whose count you use. On Memorial Day we don't need to remember them all. Only the soldiers.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Supreme Court on Healthcare Mandate: What Else Would Go Down?
The conservative judges on the United States Supreme Court would very much like to find that requiring Americans to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. Their problem, if they rule that way, is that it could endanger the legal basis of much of the corporate security state and its control over the economy.
In Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida (No. 11-398), it is being argued by the State of Florida and opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the federal government, in this Act of Congress, exceeded the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Supporters of the Act will want to rule that it is constitutional, in line with many prior findings, over the course of two centuries, that the Commerce Clause effectively allows for national laws telling citizens what to do or not do about all manner of things.
At the mass media story line level, this case is about whether the federal government can tell a citizen to buy medical insurance, and fine any citizen who does not do so (just $95 per year in 2014, but rising to $695 per year by 2016). Or, and this is important, to put it in the negative: citizens may not walk around without having some sort of medical insurance.
If you think about it for a moment, the federal government tells us we cannot do many things, even if we don't need to cross state lines to do them. We cannot grow, harvest, consume or smoke marijuana, for instance. We may not own heavy armaments. We can't manufacture a fleet of cars that only gets an average of 12 miles to the gallon, nor can we use American Eagles for target practice.
If the Supreme Court says that we cannot be required to buy health insurance, the entire house of cards may collapse. There are a lot of cards that conservatives like, and a lot of cards that liberals like, and probably some cards that both teams like.
The liberal position has consistently been that the federal government has all the power it wants as long as it does not violate certain key sections of the Constitution. The building of this position began in Gibbons v. Ogden, [22 U.S. 1 (1824)], where the Supreme Court decided that individual states could not grant monopolies to steamboat lines that prevented competing companies from offering interstate service. It made a big leap forward when railroads and other trans-state corporations began to be regulated in the late 1800's.
During the New Deal, in the 1930's, the Supreme Court at first resisted, and then admitted (after some changes of personnel), that the power of the federal government to regulate commerce, and anything related to commerce, was virtually unlimited. Famously, in Farmer Filburn (Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)), the Court ruled that the Department of Agriculture could tell Roscoe Filburn how much wheat he could grow on his private property, even if the wheat itself was not sold, but was used to raise chickens.
The current case is not about States Rights, but has a similar feel to it. Conservatives want federal laws when that helps them get their way, with states rights allowed to stop federal laws they don't like. For once Liberals are completely in agreement: they want federal laws when that helps them get their way, with states rights allowed to stop federal laws they don't like. For instance, when slavery was federal law, liberals wanted states rights to apply so that they could have slavery-free states. Later, when trying to enforce civil rights legislation in the 1960's, liberals were against those very same ideas of states rights, proposed by Democratic Party leaders in the South as a means of preventing segregation.
What we are likely to see is the conservative members of the Court trying to distinguish the Affordable Care Act from other laws that they wish to keep in place, like the marijuana laws and the laws against various tactics that unions would like to use.
We might, in fact, be about to see the Gruel of Law cooked up before our eyes. We may see the pure power of having 5 like-thinking judges on a Supreme Court. They are likely to try to find a way to disembowel the Affordable Care Act while protecting their favorite federal no-nos, like the war on recreational drugs.
I particularly hope that Justice Clarence Thomas writes an opinion. In the liberal-to-left spectrum Thomas is often derided as not just plain wrong, but as beneath the intellectual level as other members of the court. I tend to disagree with Judge Thomas on issues, but I have read a number of his opinions, and found they were well-argued, and illustrate lively intelligence. Thomas dissented in Gonzales v. Raich, in which the majority ruled that the Commerce Clause gives the feds the power to criminalize patients who grow their own medical marijuana. So if he votes against the mandate in the current case, at least he could claim consistency. Ginsburg, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter and Breyer all voted to persecute sick people who use the herb. If any of them (of those still on the court) vote against the Affordable Care Act, they have a lot of explaining to do.
In Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida (No. 11-398), it is being argued by the State of Florida and opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the federal government, in this Act of Congress, exceeded the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Supporters of the Act will want to rule that it is constitutional, in line with many prior findings, over the course of two centuries, that the Commerce Clause effectively allows for national laws telling citizens what to do or not do about all manner of things.
At the mass media story line level, this case is about whether the federal government can tell a citizen to buy medical insurance, and fine any citizen who does not do so (just $95 per year in 2014, but rising to $695 per year by 2016). Or, and this is important, to put it in the negative: citizens may not walk around without having some sort of medical insurance.
If you think about it for a moment, the federal government tells us we cannot do many things, even if we don't need to cross state lines to do them. We cannot grow, harvest, consume or smoke marijuana, for instance. We may not own heavy armaments. We can't manufacture a fleet of cars that only gets an average of 12 miles to the gallon, nor can we use American Eagles for target practice.
If the Supreme Court says that we cannot be required to buy health insurance, the entire house of cards may collapse. There are a lot of cards that conservatives like, and a lot of cards that liberals like, and probably some cards that both teams like.
The liberal position has consistently been that the federal government has all the power it wants as long as it does not violate certain key sections of the Constitution. The building of this position began in Gibbons v. Ogden, [22 U.S. 1 (1824)], where the Supreme Court decided that individual states could not grant monopolies to steamboat lines that prevented competing companies from offering interstate service. It made a big leap forward when railroads and other trans-state corporations began to be regulated in the late 1800's.
During the New Deal, in the 1930's, the Supreme Court at first resisted, and then admitted (after some changes of personnel), that the power of the federal government to regulate commerce, and anything related to commerce, was virtually unlimited. Famously, in Farmer Filburn (Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)), the Court ruled that the Department of Agriculture could tell Roscoe Filburn how much wheat he could grow on his private property, even if the wheat itself was not sold, but was used to raise chickens.
The current case is not about States Rights, but has a similar feel to it. Conservatives want federal laws when that helps them get their way, with states rights allowed to stop federal laws they don't like. For once Liberals are completely in agreement: they want federal laws when that helps them get their way, with states rights allowed to stop federal laws they don't like. For instance, when slavery was federal law, liberals wanted states rights to apply so that they could have slavery-free states. Later, when trying to enforce civil rights legislation in the 1960's, liberals were against those very same ideas of states rights, proposed by Democratic Party leaders in the South as a means of preventing segregation.
What we are likely to see is the conservative members of the Court trying to distinguish the Affordable Care Act from other laws that they wish to keep in place, like the marijuana laws and the laws against various tactics that unions would like to use.
We might, in fact, be about to see the Gruel of Law cooked up before our eyes. We may see the pure power of having 5 like-thinking judges on a Supreme Court. They are likely to try to find a way to disembowel the Affordable Care Act while protecting their favorite federal no-nos, like the war on recreational drugs.
I particularly hope that Justice Clarence Thomas writes an opinion. In the liberal-to-left spectrum Thomas is often derided as not just plain wrong, but as beneath the intellectual level as other members of the court. I tend to disagree with Judge Thomas on issues, but I have read a number of his opinions, and found they were well-argued, and illustrate lively intelligence. Thomas dissented in Gonzales v. Raich, in which the majority ruled that the Commerce Clause gives the feds the power to criminalize patients who grow their own medical marijuana. So if he votes against the mandate in the current case, at least he could claim consistency. Ginsburg, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter and Breyer all voted to persecute sick people who use the herb. If any of them (of those still on the court) vote against the Affordable Care Act, they have a lot of explaining to do.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
President Obama's Gasoline Problem
Just when it looked like the economy of the United States of America was recovering, and Barack Obama was well on his way to joining the second term Presidents club, the price of gasoline started shooting up. If gas prices go significantly higher and stay high they could derail both the recovery and Obama's re-election.
Naturally the Republican candidates, thought to be dead in the water just a week ago, are perking up and blaming the President for the high price of gasoline. As usual, Republicans are good at identifying problems while offering solutions that would make matters worse. Newt Gingrich, who has not won a primary since South Carolina (citizens of which mostly believe they are not even legally part of the U.S.A., but an independent, sovereign state occupied by a foreign power since the end of the Civil War), says he would lower the price of gasoline by drilling everywhere in the United States and occupying Iran.
Allow me to point out that the big oil companies are not interested in drilling everywhere. Drilling for oil is an expensive and chancy proposition. There are only so many drilling rigs available. They want to drill in just a few particularly lucrative American places they have been excluded from because those places are particularly environmentally sensitive. It would take three to five years to get a major drilling program underway, and what would be the result? The price of gasoline, and of oil, would go down. Which means the U.S.-based international oil companies would be losing money five years out. That is not their idea of a sound investment.
Then you have Rick Santorum, who attacks the demand side of the equation. He wants to go back to the Dark Ages, when the Pope was an emperor, birth control consisted of one Roman Catholic army invading another Roman Catholic nation and slaying its maidens after raping them, and you were lucky to own a donkey or a horse.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how the Tea Party got control of the Club House. He keeps painting himself with Tea Party camouflage, but they won't forgive him for his past bouts of sanity. He will let us know what he thinks when he his aides figure out what the Tea Party thinks.
Finally, there is Ron Paul. He has a more workable plan than Santorum. His way back machine would take us to 1928, before the big crash, when unfettered capitalism and the gold standard looked like they might actually work out. Gasoline then was something like $0.21, but then again the minimum wage was $0.00, so go figure.
The real problem is that the oil companies and corporate security state are lying to us, with Barack Obama as their front man. Right now they are saying Iran is the problem, Iran is the cause of high gas prices. But Iran would be happy to get back to the Republican ideal of Free Trade. It is willing to trade its oil to anyone, and wants a bunch of things it can't produce itself. Like parts for nuclear weapons and reactors. Iranians just want parity with Israel, which has had nuclear weapons and reactors for decades.
Here's an idea, Mr. President: push back a little at the war hawks. Pretend to be nice to Iran until you have won a second term. Ship some of that good Iranian crude to California so our Prius fleet does not run out of gas.
Wait. I take that back. There is the Jewish vote in Florida and New York to think about, two swing states with a lot of Electoral College votes. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pay through the nose for gasoline until after the election.
So I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Her plan is to cut back U.S. military spending slightly and then use the money to buy Toyota. The whole company. She'll move all the Toyota factories to the U.S. and hire all American workers. They will all build Prius variants, and everyone over the age of 17 would get one on a sliding-scale basis. We'll have full employment and the price of gasoline will drop to $1.50 a gallon. Of course, that would be socialism.
Naturally the Republican candidates, thought to be dead in the water just a week ago, are perking up and blaming the President for the high price of gasoline. As usual, Republicans are good at identifying problems while offering solutions that would make matters worse. Newt Gingrich, who has not won a primary since South Carolina (citizens of which mostly believe they are not even legally part of the U.S.A., but an independent, sovereign state occupied by a foreign power since the end of the Civil War), says he would lower the price of gasoline by drilling everywhere in the United States and occupying Iran.
Allow me to point out that the big oil companies are not interested in drilling everywhere. Drilling for oil is an expensive and chancy proposition. There are only so many drilling rigs available. They want to drill in just a few particularly lucrative American places they have been excluded from because those places are particularly environmentally sensitive. It would take three to five years to get a major drilling program underway, and what would be the result? The price of gasoline, and of oil, would go down. Which means the U.S.-based international oil companies would be losing money five years out. That is not their idea of a sound investment.
Then you have Rick Santorum, who attacks the demand side of the equation. He wants to go back to the Dark Ages, when the Pope was an emperor, birth control consisted of one Roman Catholic army invading another Roman Catholic nation and slaying its maidens after raping them, and you were lucky to own a donkey or a horse.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how the Tea Party got control of the Club House. He keeps painting himself with Tea Party camouflage, but they won't forgive him for his past bouts of sanity. He will let us know what he thinks when he his aides figure out what the Tea Party thinks.
Finally, there is Ron Paul. He has a more workable plan than Santorum. His way back machine would take us to 1928, before the big crash, when unfettered capitalism and the gold standard looked like they might actually work out. Gasoline then was something like $0.21, but then again the minimum wage was $0.00, so go figure.
The real problem is that the oil companies and corporate security state are lying to us, with Barack Obama as their front man. Right now they are saying Iran is the problem, Iran is the cause of high gas prices. But Iran would be happy to get back to the Republican ideal of Free Trade. It is willing to trade its oil to anyone, and wants a bunch of things it can't produce itself. Like parts for nuclear weapons and reactors. Iranians just want parity with Israel, which has had nuclear weapons and reactors for decades.
Here's an idea, Mr. President: push back a little at the war hawks. Pretend to be nice to Iran until you have won a second term. Ship some of that good Iranian crude to California so our Prius fleet does not run out of gas.
Wait. I take that back. There is the Jewish vote in Florida and New York to think about, two swing states with a lot of Electoral College votes. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pay through the nose for gasoline until after the election.
So I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Her plan is to cut back U.S. military spending slightly and then use the money to buy Toyota. The whole company. She'll move all the Toyota factories to the U.S. and hire all American workers. They will all build Prius variants, and everyone over the age of 17 would get one on a sliding-scale basis. We'll have full employment and the price of gasoline will drop to $1.50 a gallon. Of course, that would be socialism.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Florida, Michigan Voters Deserve Full Representation
Corruption comes in many forms. And all of those forms can be found in the Democratic Party.
Last year some States rebelled against the Republican and Democratic Party bosses. They were tired of nominees for President being picked by a few mostly white, rural voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. So they moved up the dates of their own Presidential primaries.
The Democratic Party bosses responded by nullifying the votes in Florida and Michigan. However, Senator Hillary Clinton and others were fighting to seat the delegations elected by the voters of Florida and Michigan.
Barack Obama is seeking to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. A long-time favorite of the party bosses, a get-along, go-along kind of politician spit up by the Daley machine in Chicago, Barack Obama wants to be the first sort-of black major party nominee for President badly enough to disenfranchise the rather large number of black voters in those two states to achieve his goal.
But let's take this out of the context of rival presidential candidates. What is the right thing to do if we believe in democracy?
I believe it comes down to this question: do the governments of the States have the right and responsibility to set dates for elections, or is that up to the self-selected bosses of the Democratic Party?
The governments of the states represent the people of the states. Unless their is a federal law to the contrary, there is not even an argument here. The national party bosses can suggest dates, but the elections take place when on dates set by the States. The state governments are elected. The people of Florida effectively chose their own primary date. To deny them their rightful role in the nomination of a party candidate because they showed they can govern themselves just illustrates that the Democratic Party still has a fascistic character.
Giving Florida half its normal representation, rather than doing what is right, is an outrageous insult. It is a cutting the baby in half decision. It was cynically calculated to insure the nomination of the bosses' candidate.
The party bosses want to control the nomination process. They've had problems with the rabble getting out of control in the past, for instance when George McGovern was nominated.
One fair way to deal with the problem, going forward, is to have a rotation system. Let a different state be in the lead position each election cycle.
Iowa, be gone. The astonishingly, globally stupid Ethanol scam is a result of Iowa's long prominence in the nomination process.
Of course, in the long run the best thing for the American people is to leave both of the major parties and form or join other parties that more reflect the will of the people.
Last year some States rebelled against the Republican and Democratic Party bosses. They were tired of nominees for President being picked by a few mostly white, rural voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. So they moved up the dates of their own Presidential primaries.
The Democratic Party bosses responded by nullifying the votes in Florida and Michigan. However, Senator Hillary Clinton and others were fighting to seat the delegations elected by the voters of Florida and Michigan.
Barack Obama is seeking to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. A long-time favorite of the party bosses, a get-along, go-along kind of politician spit up by the Daley machine in Chicago, Barack Obama wants to be the first sort-of black major party nominee for President badly enough to disenfranchise the rather large number of black voters in those two states to achieve his goal.
But let's take this out of the context of rival presidential candidates. What is the right thing to do if we believe in democracy?
I believe it comes down to this question: do the governments of the States have the right and responsibility to set dates for elections, or is that up to the self-selected bosses of the Democratic Party?
The governments of the states represent the people of the states. Unless their is a federal law to the contrary, there is not even an argument here. The national party bosses can suggest dates, but the elections take place when on dates set by the States. The state governments are elected. The people of Florida effectively chose their own primary date. To deny them their rightful role in the nomination of a party candidate because they showed they can govern themselves just illustrates that the Democratic Party still has a fascistic character.
Giving Florida half its normal representation, rather than doing what is right, is an outrageous insult. It is a cutting the baby in half decision. It was cynically calculated to insure the nomination of the bosses' candidate.
The party bosses want to control the nomination process. They've had problems with the rabble getting out of control in the past, for instance when George McGovern was nominated.
One fair way to deal with the problem, going forward, is to have a rotation system. Let a different state be in the lead position each election cycle.
Iowa, be gone. The astonishingly, globally stupid Ethanol scam is a result of Iowa's long prominence in the nomination process.
Of course, in the long run the best thing for the American people is to leave both of the major parties and form or join other parties that more reflect the will of the people.
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